RIL gets 2-week deadline

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As a blow to Mr Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd, the gas regulator gave the oil major two weeks to commit to, or quit from, four projects.

The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) directed Reliance to agree unconditionally to lay the main pipeline carrying gas on the Kakinada-Howrah, Kakinada-Chennai, Chennai-Tuticorn and Chennai-Mangalore circuits before June 2012 or leave the field to other players.

RIL was allocated these common carriers along with the Kakinada-Jamnagar circuit which was in operation before the bid system for pipeline projects was introduced. RIL ignored the carrier projects except the East-West line.

The state-owned AP Gas Infrastructure Corporation (APGIC) moved the PNGRB against Reliance for not only sitting on the pipeline project but also preventing others from developing the same.

APGIC, on the other hand, agreed to give its commitment to PNGRB within two weeks to lay the pipeline on the Kakinada-Srikakulam and Ennore-Nellore sectors on its own.

“These two lines are strategically important for achieving a higher industrial growth in the state and we expressed our readiness to lay the main trunk lines,” the infrastructure and investment principal secretary, Mr Ajay Mishra, told this newspaper.

Thanks to APGIC’s efforts, the PNGRB recently conducted an open house discussion in which all the stakeholders, including Reliance, presented their cases.

A team of officials led by the APGIC executive director, Mr V. Srinivasulu, argued for allowing other players to develop regional gas grids for industrial and domestic purposes as Reliance is not keen to develop them. “We could establish the contradictions in Reliance's viewpoint on the common carriers,” Mr Srinivasulu pointed out.

Countering Reliance’s argument that the state’s proposal for the Ennore-Nellore line suffered from lack of availability of gas, APGIC informed the regulator about its plans to draw RLNG from the proposed terminal of the Indian Oil Corporation at Ennore to import the liquid gas.